‘House of Cards’ Eyes December Production Restart Without Kevin Spacey

House of Cards hasn’t come forth with many updates since beginning to part ways with star Kevin Spacey, but there may yet be hope on the horizon. A new report suggests the Netflix drama will finally get back to work in December, albeit with some new crew.

A new letter from production company Media Rights Capital (h/t TVLine) addresses the ongoing shutdown of House of Cards’ sixth and final season, suggesting that production will finally resume on December 8. The series had previously shut down to retool Season 6 around an exit for Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood, though the company was said to have uncertain legal grounds to fire the actor. If indeed production resumes in December, the issue may have been resolved:

Dear Cast and Crew,

As we move into the holidays, we want to express our appreciation for all of the meaningful messages of support we have received from you and want to update all of our loyal cast and crew on our progress and where things currently stand.

We continue to work with Netflix with the hope of resuming production soon. As we continue these discussions, we have determined together that the crew will be paid for an additional two week hiatus – beginning on November 27th and continuing through December 8th.

In addition to the writers, there will be a small contingency of office/accounting staff who will remain in the production office on a continuous basis. Our hope is that the entire crew will be able to reconvene when production resumes, but we want you to know that we will certainly understand if crew members need to find other work in the interim, which will prevent them from re-joining us. We sincerely appreciate all you have done.

Cast and other union members who are not actively working will be paid in accordance with applicable union guidelines through this period and we will be reaching out directly to your representatives to work through the details; we will get to everyone as quickly as possible and appreciate all of your patience here.

These last two months have tested and tried all of us in ways none of us could have foreseen. The one thing we have learned throughout this process is that this production is bigger than just one person and we could not be more proud to be associated with one of the most loyal and talented production cast and crews in this business.

We will provide an additional update by 12/8/17.

Last we heard, writers were considering a deadly exit for Spacey’s character, who had more or less been sidelined by the events of Season 5 regardless. The sixth season is still intended as final, though it remains unclear if any of the proposed spinoffs will come to fruition.

We’ll hear more in December, but might Season 6 have a late 2018 premiere to accommodate its new production schedule?